Ken Stickney: Koozied up with the devil

Count me in as an adherent to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

Although the Society - "Journalism Church" is what one former colleague and fellow SPJ chapter board member called the society - can be dismissed as "preachy," the society gives clear guidelines about how newspeople should behave. I've posted the code - commandments, some might say - in my last three newsrooms prior to Lafayette.

Here's some of what SPJ advises: Avoid freebies. Keep the line distinct between news and paid space.

I've even heard the interpretation once that you could accept food, but not more than what can be eaten in a day. Some of us can eat a lot under such 24-hour deadline pressure.

So it was with no small guilt that I walked the floor of the Louisiana Gulf Coast Oil Exposition last week. There were 416 vendors, and every one of them, it seems, was offering "goodies." There were games. There were golf tees. Good Lord, there was even chocolate. But I was at work.

What brought me to my knees, though, what made me cringe in SPJ-induced guilt as I walked the exposition floor, aisle by aisle, was the easy availability of "koozies," defined by the Urban Dictionary as " a cylindrical insulator for beer can and beer bottles." It seemed as if every vendor was passing them out to strangers like me.

A disclaimer here: I don't drink beer. I don't even use koozies. And I had no intention of bringing any koozies home.

But the woman in the next newsroom cubicle - she is my beloved daughter's age - loves koozies. She collects them, she said, a practice which I did not know even existed. I knew this on Day No. 1 of the expo, but I did not know to what heights her joy might spring if I brought her just a few koozies, which I had stuffed into my pockets haphazardly. She laughed when I gave them to her at the office, and when she laughs, she gets her money's worth. I was hooked: I had to bring her more koozies.

On Day 2, walking the expo floor, I ran out of pocket space quickly and assented to take some vendor's plastic bag. Now I was just sinking deeper, ethically. Koozie after koozie piled up in my bag. I could not help myself. And my colleague's delight when I returned with my treasures just drove me further down the wayward path on Day 3.

I doubt that I claimed one of every koozie available. There were just too many booths in the Cajundome & Convention Center. And even though I strayed, I thank the vendors for their good intentions. The smile from my newsroom neighbor made it all worthwhile.

Thank you to Houston Marine, Marine Industries, R.A.W., and U.S. Underwater Services. Thank you, Kemper and Enardo, M&J and Mathey Dearman. Thanks Amerisafe, DISA and DTS, Water Weights and Timken. Thanks to The Crosby Group, AutoComm and AutoComm (Oops, I stopped there twice.)

There. I've made my confession.

I will sin no more.

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Ken Stickney: Koozied up with the devil

Count me in as an adherent to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

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